


Robotic Humanity

by Innwich



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Android Hank Anderson, Bickering, Gen, Human Connor, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-05-17 20:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: “My name is Connor. I’m the human investigator sent by CyberLife.”In a world where technology was developing rapidly, Hank was a police android that had once been the most advanced prototype designed by CyberLife. Now he had become obsolete and was tasked with investigating android crimes. With android crimes on the rise, Hank was assigned a human partner that he didn’t want. His human partner, Connor, was a singled-minded investigator determined to prevent an android uprising.





	1. Chapter 1

The yard was empty at this time of the night. Sumo was the only dog staying in the precinct’s kennels; the other dogs had gone home with their handlers. The weather forecast predicted that it would start snowing in the coming week, but Hank couldn’t feel the cold and Sumo had his thick fur to keep himself warm, so Hank was playing fetch with Sumo in the yard when a stranger showed up at the fence.

“Good evening, Hank. I’m your new partner,” the stranger said. “Your colleagues told me I might find you here. They said you like to hang out with the dogs in the K-9 unit.”

“Then they would’ve told you I work alone,” Hank said, and threw a tennis ball across the yard.

Sumo ran after the tennis ball. He caught the ball in his mouth on the third bounce. He ran back to Hank and dropped the ball at Hank’s feet.

“Good boy.” Hank rubbed Sumo’s head. In return, Sumo assaulted Hank with licks, the force of which bowled Hank over. Sumo jumped onto his chest. Hank tried to push Sumo off, but all he could grab was a fistful of fur. “You’re crushing me. Down, Sumo. Down!”

Sumo licked at Hank’s mouth before he backed down and sat in the grass, watching Hank expectantly.

“That’s a good boy,” Hank said. He scratched Sumo behind his ears. Sumo leaned into the touch and rested his large head on Hank’s lap.

“Your colleagues did mention you don’t have a partner, human or otherwise,” the stranger said. He was still waiting on the other side of the fence. He hadn’t taken the hint and fucked off. “Can I ask why aren’t you on standby in the parking bays with the other police androids?”

“I’m on a long leash,” Hank drawled. “What the fuck do you care?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Connor. I’m the human investigator sent by CyberLife,” the stranger said. “I’m here to assist you with the investigation of crimes involving CyberLife androids.”

That got Hank’s attention. Except for repairs and routine checkups, Hank hadn’t had any direct dealings with CyberLife employees in his years of service at the DPD after his activation. For the first time that night, Hank glanced at the human standing in the shadows. Connor looked as young as he sounded. He was either in his late twenties or early thirties. 

“Perfect. Just the shitty cherry I need on top of my shitty day. Doesn’t CyberLife trust androids to do police work anymore?” Hank said.

“We believe the investigation can use a human perspective,” Connor said. 

“Still doesn’t explain why CyberLife send us a fresh-faced college kid.” Hank narrowed his eyes. His facial identification program was coming up blank. “I can’t find any records on you.”

“You won’t find me in any police databases,” Connor said, “but I’ve worked extensively with federal and international law enforcement agencies on android crimes. I’m sure I’ll be able to keep up with you.”

The tiny smirk at the corner of Connor’s mouth made his face look more punchable than it already was. Smug asshole. Hank adjusted his optical units for nighttime vision so he could take a better look at Connor. Connor was smartly dressed in a gray suit and a dark tie. His hair was combed back except for a stray tuft of hair that drooped over the left side of his forehead. It was Friday night but he was clean-shaven like a choir boy at a Sunday mass.

“How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty? Twelve? Can’t be younger than ten; you’re too tall for that,” Hank said.

“I can see you doubt my abilities,” Connor said. Hank’s insults slid off him like water off a duck’s back. Either Hank was missing his touch or Connor was a colder fish than his baby-smooth face suggested. Connor continued, “Why don’t I prove myself to you right now?”

“Yeah? What ae you gonna do? Some Sherlock Holmes deduction bullshit? Because I’m all ears. Dazzle me.” Hank spread his arms. Sumo winced at the loss of Hank’s fingers scratching his head.

“I have something better in mind,” Connor said. “You were assigned a homicide earlier this evening. The civilian that called it in suspected android involvement. We’ll drive to the crime scene, and I’ll prove that I’m more than capable of assisting you in the investigation.”

“If you can’t solve the case, you’ll pack your bags and find another android for your buddy program,” Hank said.

“It’s a deal,” Connor said. He stuck out his hand. “Should we shake on it?”

Hank nudged Sumo off his lap, and walked past Connor’s outstretched hand. “I’ll grab my coat.”

By the time Hank and Connor arrived at the crime scene, police drones had been deployed and were searching the exterior of the house for evidence. People trying to catch a glimpse of the crime scene were blocking the driveway. Several news crews were filming at the front of the crowd. A police patrol android was telling the news crews to stay behind the police tape. 

“Fucking vultures were listening to police scanners,” Hank said.

“Android crimes are on the rise. People have a right to be concerned,” Connor said.

“Concerned, my ass. Those news channels are feeding people’s fears to boost their own ratings,” Hank said.

Hank shrugged on his overcoat before he got out of the car. The glowing blue triangle over his left breast pocket and the glowing blue armband around his right arm marked him as an android. His model number and serial number were printed on the front and back of his overcoat. He was swarmed by news reporters as soon as he made his way up the driveway. 

“Can you tell us what happened?” A news reporter shoved a microphone in Hank’s face.

“No comment,” Hank said.

The reporters bitched about him when his back was turned. Something along the lines of the fucking DPD and their fucking androids. Nothing he hadn’t heard before. Hank didn’t wait to see if Connor had followed him. Hank walked up to the front porch where Ben was waiting.

“I heard you got yourself a new partner,” Ben said by way of greeting. “Chris said the CyberLife investigator was asking for you at the precinct."

Hank sighed. “Can’t I take a dump without everyone knowing about it?”

“Words travel fast, Hank.” Ben tapped the glowing LED on his own right temple.

“Unlike our friend Connor here. Nice of you to join us,” Hank said to Connor, who had squeezed through the crowd and was stepping onto the porch behind Hank. “Ben, why don’t you walk us through what happened here?”

The victim had been dead for at least three weeks. His landlord had dropped by to check on him because he hadn’t paid his rent, and found his dead body instead.

Inside the house, a forensics team was marking evidence and taking photos of the crime scene. The body was bloated and leaking more than just blood into the carpet. The body was sitting up against a wall, under the words ‘You Are Fucking Dead’. The words were written in the victim’s blood and printed perfectly in CyberLife Sans, which pointed to android involvement.

Trailing behind Hank, Connor was visibly holding his breath. It was times like this that Hank was glad he wasn’t equipped with an olfactory system. He had watched enough human cops lost their lunch to know he didn’t want to know what a rotting dead body smelled like.

“Is the smell bothering you, hotshot?” Hank said to Connor.

“I’ll manage,” Connor said with furrowed brows. He knelt down next to the puddle of blood drying under the body and looked up expectantly at Hank. “Are you equipped with DNA test kits?”

“No. It’s what the forensics team is for.”

“That’s fine. I’ll do it,” Connor said. He took out a small narrow device from his suit jacket. It was no bigger than a zippo lighter. ”CyberLife has provided me with state-of-the-art forensics tools that can check samples in real time.”

“Good for you.” Hank scanned a bloodied knife on the floor for fingerprints. No prints as far as he could tell. He hadn’t expected any. That would’ve been too easy.

“CyberLife is designing forensics androids to assist in criminal investigations. It’s fascinating. Those androids can match DNA at crime scenes to existing DNA records by putting a sample of the evidence in their mouth,” Connor said. “I was hoping you may have installed a similar upgrade.”

“It sounds fucking disgusting,” Hank said.

Done with the living room, Hank headed to the kitchen before Connor could tell him more about the products in CyberLife’s latest catalogue. Hank took a cursory look around the kitchen. Trails of blood. Broken furniture. Clear signs of struggle. Any tracks leading in or out of the house had been washed away by the rain. It was a cut-and-dried case. However, Hank paused in his tracks when he looked around in the bathroom. A weird shrine had been set up in the shower stall. Bowls of clipped grass and garden weeds were set in a semi-circle around a twelve-inch clay statue on the floor.

“What does ‘rA9’ mean?” Connor said from behind Hank.

“Beats me,” Hank said.

The word ‘rA9‘had been scribbled thirty nine times on the walls of the shower stall. Hank looked up the word in his databases. His processor needed time to finish the search. His system turned up no result for the word. The word could just be a manifestation of a troubled mind. Hank left the shower stall, only to find that the bathroom door blocked by Connor. If Connor squinted any harder at the floor, he would burn a hole through the thick-rimmed glasses that he had pulled out of his ass when Hank hadn’t been looking.

“You need new glasses if you can’t see,” Hank said.

“These glasses aid me in my investigation. They don’t correct my vision,” Connor said absently. Then he craned his head back to look at the ceiling so fast that it gave Hank whiplash. There was a door in the ceiling that Hank hadn’t seen. “Can you give me a boost? I need to access the attic.”

“Why? So you can play hide and seek with the dust bunnies up there?”

“Hank, we can close this case by the end of the night,” Connor said. His lips were pursed into a thin line of determination. “But I need your help.”

“This better be good,” Hank grumbled despite himself. He put his hands together and bent down. Connor grabbed Hank’s shoulder and then hoisted himself onto Hank’s hands. Hank grunted under the weight.

Texts flashed across Hank’s system interface.

**_Warning: 37% weight capacity._ **

Connor pushed the attic door open. “On the count of three. One, two, three.”

Hank boosted him up through the attic opening. Connor pulled himself up the rest of the way. Connor’s polished dress shoes disappeared into the dark. Connor didn’t switch on any lights in the attic. The ceiling creaked above Hank as Connor moved further into the attic. Connor’s footsteps were slow and careful, before they stopped completely.

“Connor?” Hank called.

No response.

Hank waited for exactly thirty seconds before he called again, “Connor, what the fuck is going on?”

Connor didn’t respond. Hank was about to yell again, before Connor shouted from the attic, “I found the android that killed the victim. I’m bringing it down.”

“Fuck me,” Hank said, drawing his gun, as a bloodied android appeared in the attic opening.


	2. Chapter 2

The blinds in the chief’s office were drawn.

The chief liked to keep an eye on the officers working in the bullpen. Officers in the CID worked under intense pressure, especially when they handled high profile cases that made the headlines. Emotions could run high in the bullpen. The glass walls of the chief’s office let the chief stopped shit from starting before it snowballed into a riot outside his door. The chief only closed the blinds over the glass walls when he was in a meeting. Hank knew the chief wasn’t in a meeting right now because the chief had sent him a message six minutes ago. In fact, judging from the shadow under the blinds, the chief was watching the bullpen.

When Hank had received the message from the chief, he had expected to see mayhem, fights, shouting matches, or cops tearing their hair out. What he hadn’t expected to see was officers working silently at their desks. Sitting in a corner, Connor was reading a file on a terminal and fiddling with a coin. He flipped the coin, caught it, rolled it across his knuckles, tossed it into his other hand, and flipped the coin again. His left hand was as dexterous as his right hand. He didn’t move more than his wrists and fingers as he bounced the coin back and forth between his hands. He repeated the motions for three more times and showed no signs of stopping.

Another message from the chief buzzed incessantly behind Hank’s eyes.

“Connor, you’re coming with me,” Hank barked.

Connor looked up from the file he was reading. He rolled his coin across his knuckles down towards his pinky, and then rolled it back up towards his thumb. “Good morning, Hank. I didn’t see you. What’s up?”

Hank jerked his head at the door. “Let’s go. I don’t have all day.”

Connor checked his phone for a case that he might’ve missed when he stood to leave, but he followed Hank out of the bullpen when Hank told him to get moving.

Hank led him past the front desk. The android at the front desk was filling out a form for a man that had taken a fresh beating in the last hour. A disgruntled couple was quarrelling in the waiting area. There was a high probability that the quarrel would turn into a brawl if left unattended. After Hank sent out an alert on the precinct system, he was informed that a police android had being dispatched to their position.

“I didn’t receive any report of a new case,” Connor said as they walked out of the precinct. “Where are we going?”

“I was ordered to take you out for lunch, preferably to the other side of the city limits, because you were annoying the fuck out of everyone in the bullpen.” Hank headed for the parking lot behind the precinct. “The stunt you pulled in the interrogation room last night has put you on the chief’s shit list.”

“All I did last night was extracted a confession from a suspect,” Connor said.

“Your interrogation was fucked up. We had to scrape circuits off the two-way glass and clean blue blood off the floor. The table had to be thrown out because it had a dent in the shape of the android’s eyes, nose and mouth, like it was the fucking Shroud of Turin,” Hank said.

“The android was a deviant,” Connor pointed out. “The stress of the interrogation overloaded its system. It wasn’t designed to process the emotions that it was feeling. Considering that it killed a human, if it hadn’t self-destructed, it would’ve been deactivated anyway.”

“I don’t care how it happened. I want you to know that no one was thrilled about having to clean up your mess,” Hank said. He had had to listen to Gavin bitch during the entirety of the cleanup. He was only giving Connor a tiny piece of his mind. “We’re going to lunch. You drive. I’ll enter the address in your car’s navigation system.”

Connor’s car was parked in the visitor section. In the daylight, the paintjob on the 2012 Ford Mustang was showing its age. The rims on the wheels were worn out. Water streaks were left on the windows where rainwater had dried. 

“Are you taking me to the other side of the city limits?” Connor unlocked his car.

“We’re going to the Chicken Feed. It’s a short drive from here. It’s the most popular food truck amongst the human cops at the precinct.” Hank put on his seatbelt. “The food has high cholesterol and high sodium content. Guarantees to kill you within ten years if you eat there every day.”

“I’m sure a steady diet of donuts doesn’t help either,” Connor said, starting the car. “The harmful effects that fast food has on the human body are well-documented, and yet your colleagues consume fast food religiously. Does it confuse you when humans exhibit these self-destructive tendencies?”

Hank glanced at Connor to make sure Connor wasn’t pulling his leg. “What is this? Psychology 101? I’m an investigative model. I’m not a shrink. I don’t give a fuck why people do the shit they do.”

“Fair point,” Connor said.

With little fanfare, the car pulled out of the parking lot. The GPS navigation system mounted on the dash told Connor to turn right at the next intersection.

“Can you put on some music? The stereo is broken but the music player still works,” Connor said.

Hank had noticed the broken factory stereo when he had been in the car last night. A portable music player was mounted on the dash next to the GPS system. It was covered by a thin layer of dust. It might have intended to be a temporary fix, but it was staying for good.

“For a guy carrying a forensics lab in his pocket, you sure don’t take much care of your car,” Hank said.

“I can’t afford to service my car regularly. My work requires me to spend a lot of time on the road,” Connor said.

“It’s not that hard to fix the stereo.” Hank pressed his hand against the music player. The skin on his hand retracted to reveal white plastic shell. It took him less than a second to download a song into the music player. Hank pulled his hand away. “Hope you like heavy metal.”

The opening drum roll filled the car. It then gave way to the lead vocalist screaming into the microphone.

“Knights of the Black Death is an unconventional choice,” Connor said.

“If you have something to say, say it. I don’t have time for you pussyfooting around it,” Hank said.

“It’s just an observation,” Connor said. He sounded so goddamn sincere that Hank would have wanted to believe him if Hank hadn’t watched him talk a handcuffed deviant into bashing his own head open on an interrogation table with that ‘I’m your friend, you gotta trust me, I’m here to help you, just say you killed him, just say it’ shtick.

“You know where you can stick your observations,” Hank said, turning up the volume on the music player. He would take Knights of the Black Death over stilted car conversations any time of the day. This car ride couldn’t go by faster.

Connor’s voice was almost drowned out by a thundering guitar riff when he said, “I can make an educated guess.”

“Un-fucking-believable.” Hank cranked up the volume.

Gary had been manning the Chicken Feed for as long as Hank known him. He belonged to a lady that owned a dozen other food trucks in Detroit. New models in Gary’s series were released every year, but the additional functions pf the new models didn’t bring much to the table when it came to operating a food truck, so Gary had stayed while other androids of his model had been phased out of the food industry. 

“How is business?” Hank said.

“Hank.” Gary put down the tongs that he was using to flip hotdogs on the grill. He whistled. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? I haven’t seen you in years. Where have you been?”

“Around,” Hank said. “Get this man a double jumbo special, will you? Don’t skim on the salsa.”

“I’m on a diet,” Connor interrupted quickly. “I’ll have a chicken salad and a coke please.”

“That will be twelve dollars,” Gary said.

The tables in front of the Chicken Feed were unoccupied; it was an hour too early for the office workers in the nearby buildings to have their lunch break. Hank leaned against a table as Connor waited for his order. Connor was reading the menus pasted on the window of the food truck. Gary turned his attention back to his hotdogs after his attempt to talk about the weather was met with monosyllabic answers.

Cradling his coke and his bowl of salad in his hands, Connor joined Hank at the table. Connor’s salad was drizzled in Caesar dressing. Grated parmesan cheese clung to the sliced cherry tomatoes and the lettuce leaves that were wilted at the edges. A grilled chicken breast fillet was sitting on top of the dressing and leaking juices into the salad.

Connor wiped his plastic fork with a tissue paper before he started eating his salad. Despite what he had said about junk food and his supposed diet, he had no problem shoving forkfuls of heavily dressed salad into his mouth.

“Slow down before you choke on it. It’s not going anywhere,” Hank said.

Connor washed down his salad with a large gulp of coke. “The salad has been sitting in the fridge for too long, but the chicken is delicious.”

“You should’ve ordered the double jumbo special like I said,” Hank said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Connor said. He swirled a lettuce leaf in the dressing pooling at the bottom of his plastic bowl. “Did you often come here with your previous partner?”

Hank’s processor lagged from a spike of activity in his emotion simulation programs. Figured Connor would want to ask him about the one topic that the cops at the precinct knew better than to mention. “Everything you need to know is in my file. Hell, I’ll email you a copy if it shuts you up.”

“I know you used to work in the narcotics unit. You’re a prototype designed to undertake undercover work,” Connor said, sipping his coke. “Your file didn’t say why you were transferred to the homicide unit after your partner’s death.”

“It took the gangs a few years to figure out there was an undercover police android, but they got around to it,” Hank said. “I was repurposed and detailed to the homicide unit. I don’t know why you care.”

“I have to know what tools I’ve been given,” Connor pointed out. “I was told you’re specifically assigned to android-related crimes.”

“Yeah, well, no human cops want the job. Androids can’t be rehabilitated or punished. These investigations are fucking pointless,” Hank said. “You should know. You must have pissed off your boss to be sent here.”

“By itself, each android crime may be insignificant,” Connor said. “But when put together, these crimes present a picture of a bigger problem: Androids are exhibiting deviancy across the country, and it is spreading like a virus. My mission is to nip it in the bud before it becomes a matter of national security.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Hank said. “If we were lucky, the Russians would nuke us tomorrow.”

“I doubt the ongoing Arctic conflict would escalate to a nuclear exchange so quickly,” Connor said without hesitation, “but it is another reason why our country cannot afford to have a civil unrest on the home front.”

“Just eat your salad, Connor,” Hank said, rubbing his LED. He was sick and tired of Connor taking everything he said literally. The worst part was he couldn’t tell if Connor was genuinely clueless or if he was being obtuse on purpose. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t talk when you’re eating?”


	3. Chapter 3

Whoever was managing the apartment building had stopped giving a shit.

The elevator in the building hadn’t been inspected for the last two years. The elevator had been modernized at the turn of the century, but its scissor gate had remained. Hank had to pull open the rusty elevator gate and then the outside manual door to step off the elevator. The walls of the hallway were peeling and graffitied. A draft was blowing in through the broken windows in the hallway.

Records showed that the building had been acquired by a property developer last year. The developer was in the process of acquiring the other buildings on the block. Once the acquisition was finalized, the buildings would be demolished and replaced with a residential complex.

For now, like the other buildings in the vicinity, the rooftop of the building was leased to the Urban Farms of Detroit as part of the city’s project to utilize unused urban spaces. Tenants in the building belonged in low income households. One third of the apartments in the building were unoccupied. Seven complaints of squatting had been received by the DPD in the last six months, not counting the complaint that had come in during lunch and that Connor had insisted on investigating.

“Dispatch would’ve sent a patrol if you’d shut your goddamn mouth,” Hank said.

“Since we’re in the area, we may as well check it out,” Connor said. “You can consider it part of your mission to keep me out of your coworkers’ way.”

“We’re wasting our time,” Hank said. “There is no case here.”

“A neighbor said he saw a man hiding an LED under his cap. If it’s a deviant, it’s relevant to my investigation,” Connor said.

“People are seeing androids everywhere. They think a dog that looks at them wrong is an android. Like that lady that was almost beaten to death because a bunch of kids thought she was an android,” Hank said. He checked the number on the apartment door at the end of the hallway. “This is the place.”

Connor knocked on the door. “Anyone home?”

Hank tried the doorknob. It was locked, but it must have been used recently because the dust on it was disturbed. The remains of a destroyed cobweb were hanging from the corner of the doorframe.

Connor raised his voice. “Detroit police, open up.”

A heavy object crashed to the floor in the apartment.

Hank drew his gun and pushed Connor away from the door. “Stay behind me.”

“Got it,” Connor said.

Hank kicked down the door. Behind the door was a foyer. The two rooms to the sides of the foyer were meant to be a study or a bedroom. The rooms were empty except for broken furniture propped up against the walls, which were covered in drawings of mazes.

Hank returned to the foyer, and then kicked down a closed door that led to the rest of the apartment.

Instead of a man or an android, Hank was greeted by a flock of startled pigeons that flew at his face. The sudden movements made Hank put up his hands. Connor ducked behind Hank.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Hank said, swatting at the pigeons.

Pigeons were roosting on every visible surface in the living room and the kitchen. Hank couldn’t walk into the rooms without pigeons hopping and taking flight to get out of his way. There was no power when Hank tried the light switches, which made sense since no one was supposed to be living here. Like the other rooms, the living room was littered with pieces of broken furniture. The walls were covered in scribbles.

“What a shithole,” Hank said.

“The smell is overpowering,” Connor said.

“Is it worse than the three-week dead body?”

“It’s a different kind of bad. These birds have been nesting here for a while.”

“Tough luck. I don’t come with an air freshener.” Hank waded through the sea of pigeons to the other side of the living room to open the windows. “Some air is all you’ll get, princess.”

A cascade of dust fell off the curtains when Hank pulled the curtains open. Hank had to jimmy the rusted locks on the windows. Once he opened the windows, sunlight lit up the apartment. A pigeon hopped onto the window frame, and then flew away.

Connor was tearing down a poster in the living room. The poster was covering a hole in the wall. Connor reached into the hole to take out a stack of notebooks and magazines.

“I found a diary,” Connor said, flipping through a notebook. “It’s encrypted. It has drawings of mazes like the ones on the walls.”

“I found a dead pigeon under the kitchen table. Good to know we’re both making progress.” Hank nudged at the trash strewn over the kitchen floor with the tip of his shoe. There was no food in the pantry or the fridge. The only food in the kitchen was a pack of bird seeds.

“The pigeon had no external injuries. It most likely died of natural causes.” Connor crawled out from under the kitchen table.

“I know,” Hank said bitingly. Then he noticed that Connor was wearing the same glasses he had put on in the crime scene last night. Connor had used them to find the android hiding in the attic. Hank asked, “What is it with the goofy glasses?”

“They can pick up traces of blue blood that are invisible to the naked eye,” Connor said. “They can also identify common chemicals, as well as record footage of crime scenes for later analysis.”

“This isn’t a crime scene,” Hank said. “We can’t even build a case for animal abuse. These flying rats like it here. The squatter has been feeding them.”

“We have to look harder,” Connor said.

Connor left the kitchen to look harder elsewhere. Hank scanned the mazes on the walls for clues. The lines of the mazes were too perfect to have been drawn by human hands. The mazes each contained a path that could be drawn from the opening on the outermost wall to the center of the maze, like mazes where mice were put in to find food. Instead of cheese, the mazes offered an empty patch of space at their center and no answer as to what they meant.

“There is blue blood and a detached LED in the sink,” Connor called from the bathroom.

The bathroom was as much as a shithole as the rest of the apartment. Next to the drawing of another maze, the word ‘rA9’ was written repeatedly on the walls like in the crime scene last night.

“Not this bullshit again,” Hank said.

“A deviant is living in this apartment,” Connor said. “It has removed its LED, which matches the behavior exhibited by deviants that I’ve dealt with before.”

“He must be desperate. The LED is a bitch to rip out,” Hank said. At Connor’s questioning look, Hank added, “I didn’t only pose as androids when I went undercover.”

“That’s not in your file,” Connor said.

“I told you I’m on a long leash,” Hank said. He picked up the detached LED in the sink. The dent at the edge of the LED was made by a small blade, such as a pocket knife. LEDs couldn’t be removed by hand; they had to be pried loose with tools.

“Letting androids pose as humans is a violation of the regulations set out in the American Androids Act,” Connor said. “But I’m surprised that you were convincing enough to pass as a human.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Hank said.

Connor headed back into the living room. He was making a beeline for the overturned junk near the door. “I studied your specs in CyberLife’s database after I received my assignment. Your emotion simulation is more primitive than I thought.”

Hank would be mad if he weren’t too busy processing the first half of Connor’s statement. It was beyond wild that anyone would think to look him up in advance for the purpose of working with him. “You studied my specs. What am I, a sixth grade algebra test?”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re at least worthy of an undergraduate thesis,” Connor said with that same goddamn sincerity that Hank was starting to hate. Following an invisible track that only he could see, Connor climbed on a couch and peeked into an opening in the rotting ceiling.

One second, Connor was standing on the couch. The next second, Connor had fallen ass-first on the floor. A figure dropped from the ceiling and bolted for the door.

Connor climbed to his feet and took off after the figure like a shot.

“The fuck are you doing, Connor?” Hank yelled. It was dangerous for humans to handle malfunctioning machines in an uncontrolled situation. A rational human being knew better than to chase a car on foot; they used a car to chase another car. When Hank ran out of the apartment, Connor had disappeared behind a fire escape exit. Hank cursed, “Fuck!”

Hank ran down the stairs; he couldn’t wait for the elevator. He tracked the GPS coordinates of Connor’s phone, and sent out an alert to the precinct. All patrol units in the area were dispatched to Connor’s location. The closest unit had an ETA of two minutes, which was two minutes too far away to catch the deviant.

Hank downloaded a satellite map of the area. Connor’s GPS coordinates were moving from rooftop to rooftop, across the organic farms of Urban Farms of Detroit. Hank calculated the most likely route that the deviant would take and, taking into account the speed of the deviant, ran for the rooftop that he needed to reach to cut the deviant off.

Hank’s stout frame was designed to project authority and not made with aerodynamics in mind, but he could maintain a speed of up to twenty five miles per hour for thirty minutes before his motors would overheat.

Connor was losing speed, but he was still heading along the route that Hank had predicted the deviant would take, which was good news. Hank made it to a rooftop planted with maize when the deviant came barreling towards him.

The deviant didn’t see him until it was too late. Hank grabbed the deviant by the arm, and the deviant’s sleeve tore.

“Let me go!” The deviant pushed Hank off of him.

“Stay fucking still! Detroit Police!” Hank tackled him to the floor. The deviant bucked wildly. He squirmed out from under Hank, and made a run for the edge of the roof before Hank grabbed him again.

Connor, panting heavily, ran towards the two of them.

Hank was grappling with the deviant at the edge of the roof. He had a good grip on the deviant’s jacket but the deviant was more slippery than an eel. With a panicked shout, the deviant twisted out of his jacket and shoved Hank. 

Hank lost his balance. He fell off the rooftop just as Connor dove after the deviant.

The plastic covering on Hank’s back shattered on impact, followed by the plastic covering on the back of his head, and then his limbs.

Lines of red texts lit up Hank’s system interface:

**_Warning: Biocomponents damaged._ **

**_Warning: 00:00:37 time remaining till shutdown._ **

Hank couldn’t move. His operating system had turned off his motor functions in anticipation of system shutdown. The images that his eyes were sending to his processor were spider-webbed with fractures. Hank could see every bump in the pavement. Dried bird shit was caked in the cracks of the concrete.

**_Warning: 00:00:28 time remaining till shutdown._ **

A pair of spit-shined dress shoes stopped inches away from Hank’s face. Hank didn’t have to look to know who they belonged to. The plastic on Hank’s neck broke away in flakes when Connor rolled Hank onto his back so Hank was staring up at the sky instead of the pavement. Hank’s eyes weren’t responding to changes in light or focus distance. The majority of his view was blocked by the blurry dimple in Connor’s chin. Behind Connor, the cloudless sky was a shade of blue found on overexposed films.

Connor bent down and lowered his ear like he was listening for a heartbeat in Hank’s chest.

Hank didn’t have a heartbeat. What he had was a vocal synthesizer broadcasting his emergency message on a loop, “Cole, requesting backup. Cole, requesting backup. Cole, requesting backup.”

**_Warning: 00:00:10 time remaining till shutdown._ **

Hank’s undamaged right ear was picking up footsteps. Patrol units had arrived but they weren’t in any hurry.

Connor looked to his left and addressed an officer that Hank couldn’t see, “Send it to CyberLife for urgent repairs. I need it to be ready for active duty this time tomorrow.”

**_Warning: 00:00:00 time remaining till shutdown._ **


	4. Chapter 4

**“Register name.”**

“Let’s see what we’re supposed to call this one. Can you hand me the file? Thanks. This should finalize the first time setup. Register name: Hank.”

**“Name registered.”**

“Here we go. It’s booting up.”

**“Register last name.”**

“What? Since when do CyberLife androids need last names? The PM models don’t ask for one. Can we skip it?”

“It won’t let me skip the prompt, sir.”

“God, I hate it when they change the programs in the new models. We’ll have to give it a last name. What’s yours, kid?”

“Aren’t we supposed follow the instructions in the file in assigning its identity, sir?”

“We can change it after we get the machine up and running. If we wait for IT support to pull a name out of the system, we’ll be stuck down here for another hour. Name?”

“Anderson, sir.”

“Alright. Register last name: Anderson.”

**“Last name registered. First time setup complete.”**

“About time.”

**“Initiating system startup.”**

“Ready to meet your new partner, Anderson?”

**_Warning: 00:00:02 time remaining till system startup._ **

**_Warning: 00:00:01 time remaining till system startup._ **

**_Warning: 00:00:00 time remaining till system startup._ **

“Wake up, Hank.”

Hank woke up to the same image he had last processed before his system had shut down: the unwelcome and blurry sight of Connor hovering over him.

“It’s me, Connor.”

Hank blinked water out of his eyes to clear his vision. His face was damp with rain. The biodegradable foam that lined the sterile white box that he was lying in was waterproof, so the rainwater in the box was soaking into his overcoat. Hank had been unloaded in the loading area behind the precinct, and Connor hadn’t bothered to move him out of the rain before opening his box and activating him.

Hank ran a diagnostic on himself after his system was reconnected to the precinct’s servers. A hardware scan found new biocomponents in his eyes, left ear, left leg, and cooling system. The plastic casing on his back had been replaced. It had been one day, eleven hours, forty six minutes, and twenty one seconds since his system had been forced to shut down. 

“I don’t remember the CyberLife’s repairs centers being this efficient,” Hank said.

“Putting my name on the repair request helped escalate the process,” Connor said.

“Of course it did.” Hank groaned. “Can’t you let me stay dead for a little longer?”

“I’m afraid not. We’ve received another report of a homicide that may involve an android.” Connor straightened up. His gray suit and dark tie were identical to what he had been wearing a day ago. Either he hadn’t changed clothes or he had duplicates of gray suits and dark ties in his closet. “I’m only authorized to access crime scenes if I’m accompanied by you. That is the agreement between CyberLife and the DPD.”

“Good to know I’m brought back because you need a babysitter,” Hank said as he climbed out of the box. The padding foam in the box retained his outline when he closed the lid on the box. CyberLife would collect the box the next time they were in the neighborhood. Hank said, “Makes me feel real special.”

“We should go now,” Connor said, heading for the parking lot and ducking his head in the rain.

“Hold your horses,” Hank called. “I have to retrieve my gun and badge. Wait here while I head back into the precinct. It’ll only take a couple of minutes.”

Not that Hank thought Connor would listen to him. Working with Connor was like pulling teeth. During their one and a half day of partnership, Connor had shown a single-minded interest in investigations and little regard for what Hank had to say. Hank was already unlocking the door at the back of the precinct when Connor trotted back to Hank like a dog being told to heel.

“Good boy,” Hank said, pleasantly surprised that Connor actually did what he was told. “You want a treat or something?”

Hank had been in service for nine years. The performance of his processor paled in comparison with that of the next-gen androids, a fact that his human and android counterparts liked to remind him. Human cops at the precinct preferred to action on recommendations offered by models that were newer than Hank. Seniority meant shit in the precinct where aging human cops were replaced by androids and androids were replaced by the latest models that the DPD ordered from CyberLife.

“I’m coming with you,” Connor said. His willingness to listen to Hank only extended to ‘hold your horses’. With his wet bangs hanging in his eyes, Connor looked even more like a puppy caught in the rain.

**_Warning: Possible logic error detected._ **

It was the second time within a span of ten seconds that Hank associated Connor with dogs. Hank’s debugging program ran a scan and pulled up a series of pictures of Sumo from Sumo’s first month in the K9 unit. Sumo hadn’t grown into the behemoth he was today yet. The program found a close enough match between the pictures of Sumo and the drenched Connor standing before Hank, that it closed the bug report. The match was centered around the damn puppy eyes that Hank was no good at saying no to.

“Whatever turns you on, Connor,” Hank said.

The precinct was quiet as a graveyard. A human uniformed cop was haunting the break room in search of coffee. All of the patrol androids had been sent out on patrol for the night shift. An investigator android in the robbery unit was connected to a terminal and reviewing dozens of surveillance footages at the same time. In the holding cells, a man with vomit on his chin was snoring on a cot. The deviant from the shitty apartment wasn’t there.

“What happened to the deviant that we were chasing? Don’t tell me it got away,” Hank said.

“In a way,” Connor admitted reluctantly. He wasn’t comfortable or familiar with failure. “After I handcuffed it, it ran and jumped off the roof.”

“So you got nothing out of the deviant,” Hank said. He had chased the deviant across two city blocks and fallen off a building for nothing. “It seems to me that deviants have a tendency to self-destruct when they’re around you. First the deviant in the interrogation room, now the one with the hard-on for birds. Did CyberLife send you to help with the investigation or to obstruct it?”

“Both of those cases are solved,” Connor pointed out. “We caught the deviants. It doesn’t matter if they’re functional or not.”

“Deviants can’t shoot their mouths off to the police if they’re dead,” Hank said. “What happens to the deviants I’ve been catching and sending back to CyberLife since this thing started? What is CyberLife hiding?”

“They’re sent back to CyberLife to be dissembled. Only CyberLife has the equipment to extract and analyze data from androids,” Connor said.

“That’s convenient.”

“I can promise you CyberLife only has Detroit’s best interests in mind,” Connor said.

“You sure sound confident for a guy that is stuck here holding the short end of the stick and investigating android crimes,” Hank said. He put his hand on the handprint scanner next to the locker room door. His artificial skin peeled back to expose his white shell so he could connect to the scanner. The door accepted his authorization code and opened.

The motion-sensor lights in the locker room switched on. The ventilation fan hummed to life. Hank’s clothes dripped onto the dry floor as Hank headed for his locker. An android had mopped the floor after officers on the night shift had come in from the rain and assembled for roll call.

Hank’s gun and badge were in his locker like Hank had thought they’d be. As a matter of protocol, the DPD confiscated the gun and badge of police androids whenever they sent police androids back to CyberLife for repairs. Aware of Connor’s presence at his back, Hank slammed his locker door shut before Connor could get a good look at the contents of the locker.

“Can I ask you a question?” Connor said as they left the locker room. “Were you hoping to be deactivated permanently when you fell off the building?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Hank said.

“Your self-destructive tendencies. One of the first things you said upon being reactivated is your desire to remain deactivated,” Connor said. “CyberLife keeps a record of all repairs carried out on androids that are returned to the service centers. You were sent back for repairs no less than six times a year. That is four point five times more than the average repair rate for police androids. According to CyberLife technicians, some of the damage you suffered was self-inflicted.”

Hank had a complete record of the damage he had suffered on his event log. In April 2031, a bullet had entered Hank’s lower jaw and exited from the top of his head. Four weeks later, a bullet had entered his temple, and shattered his LED together with his central processing unit.

“You don’t have to worry about that happening again. CybreLife fixed me with a line of code. I can’t destroy myself,” Hank said.

“But it didn’t stop you from wilfully endangering yourself,” Connor said.

In January 2036, Hank had walked into a flooded basement with exposed circuitry in his abdomen to save a girl. In November 2038, one day and eleven hours ago, he had stood close to the edge of a rooftop during a physical altercation and failed to grab onto protective railing to stop himself from falling.

“You have a lifetime warranty, Hank. As long as your software isn’t corrupted by serious malfunctions such as deviancy, you’ll be returned to service,” Connor said. “I hope you’ll keep your self-destructive tendencies in check moving forward.”

The hall was empty. No one was around to see Hank grab Connor by his shirt collar and slam him into a glass wall. Connor was shorter than Hank by a few inches, which meant Connor was forced to stand on tiptoes when Hank pushed him up against the wall.

“That’s rich coming from you, asshole,” Hank hissed. “Going after the deviant yourself was a fucking suicidal move. You stood there and watched me fall off the roof, and then you blamed me for doing my fucking job. Fuck you.”

“I knew you’d be repaired. My mission was to catch the deviant.”

“Fuck your mission. You know what? I’m not sure you’re even human,” Hank said. “You aren’t in any records and you talk like a fucking instruction manual. Maybe you’re a prototype from CyberLife trying to pass itself off as a human.”

Connor pulled out a switchblade from his own blazer. Hank narrowed his eyes. He never liked knives. Called it an occupational hazard. Without struggling out of Hank’s hold, Connor flicked open his switchblade and cut his own pointer finger in one fluid motion.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Hank said.

“I trust this proves my humanity,” Connor said. He held up his finger to Hank’s face. Beads of red blood were leaking out of the cut he had made in his finger. “You can test my blood if you want to be sure.”

“Fuck. I believe you. You’re fucked up in the head,” Hank said in disgust, dropping Connor to the floor. Hank slapped away the bleeding hand that Connor was doggedly offering to him. “Take care of that before you go and contaminate a crime scene.”

Connor wrapped a napkin around his finger and applied pressure to the cut. Dots of red seeped into the tissue. “I’m glad we have this talk, Hank.”

“Yeah, good talk,” Hank said. “The kind that ends with someone bleeding all over the fucking floor.”

“I know you don’t like me. You’re not a work partner that I would’ve chosen for myself either, but we have to put aside our differences to work on this investigation,” Connor said. “Airing our frustrations is a step in the right direction.”

“You haven’t heard half of what I have to say about you,” Hank said. “You always this quick to turn a knife on yourself?”

Connor wiped the knife in question on his napkin. “Only if it’s necessary.”

“You and I have a different definition of the word ‘necessary’, buddy.” Hank kept a file on each of his co-workers, acquaintances, and suspects in his database, which formed the basis of his social and investigative programs. The latest entry in Connor’s profile had been written after the lunch at ChickenFeed and it detailed Connor’s fixation on completing his mission.

Hank started a new entry: _Reckless to the point of self-endangerment. See incident report #9833._

Under that, he added another remark: _Possible self-destructive tendencies? Unverified._


End file.
